Cameron’s EU Negotiations: The Likely Key Brussels Players

By

Valentina Pop

May 15, 2015 4:47 am ET

In this week’s Brussels Beat column, we discussed a possible solution to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to renegotiate the U.K.’s relationship with the European Union — given that a major overhaul of the EU treaty is impossible before the “in-out” referendum due by the end of 2017. In an interview Thursday with Alex Barker of the Financial Times, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond noticeably didn’t repeat his boss’s call made before the election for a “proper, full-on treaty change.”

But if the “Danish solution” we discuss in the column is a possible “how,” Brussels is also occupied with the “who.” Who will be the central players in the negotiations on this side of the English Channel? Who in Brussels will take the “Brexit” — British Exit” — file, as it is being casually referred to in the corridors of EU power?